Egypt's state grain buyer, the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC), said it had bought 60,000 tonnes of wheat from France in a tender for shipment on December 21 to 31.

Egypt, the world's biggest state importer of wheat, bought from grain group Soufflet at a price of $259.87 a tonne on a cost and freight basis, Mamdouh Abdel Fattah, vice chairman of the state grain buyer said.

The price was $243.74 free on board (FOB) plus $16.13 freight, traders said.

Egypt's last wheat purchase was announced on Nov. 5, when it bought 235,000 tonnes of French and Ukrainian wheat in a tender for shipment on December 11 to 20.

Egypt has bought more than two million tonnes of wheat on the international market since July 1, the start of the fiscal year. It purchased 5.46 million tonnes of wheat from overseas in the 2013-2014 fiscal year in addition to 3.7 million tonnes of local wheat.

Supply Minister Khaled Hanafi has said Egypt aimed to cut state imports of wheat in the next year to between 4 million and 4.5 million tonnes provided reforms to the country's bread subsidy programme continued to reduce consumption and waste.

Egypt has enough wheat reserves to last until the first week of March. - Reuters